Jupiter C re-entry vehicle test flight - .
Nation: USA. Agency: USA. Apogee: 1,097 km (681 mi). First Jupiter C (a three-stage ABMA-JPL Redstone missile) was launched at Cape Canaveral, Fla., attained an altitude of 1096 km and traveled 5,300 km downrange. The first three-stage re-entry missile, was fired at 0145 hours EST from AMR. This missile attained an estimated range of 3,335 ST miles, an altitude of 682 ST miles, and reached Mach 18 velocity. The primary objective of the firing was the propulsion and separation tart of a multi-stage vehicle. The missile was a four-stage configuration with the last stage inactive. The first stage was an elongated Redstone missile, the second and third stages were up of 11 and 3 six-inch scaled SERGEANT rockets, respectively. The payload consisted of approximately 20 pounds of instrumentation attached to the inactive fourth stage. The flight was successful and the sequence of operations occurred as programmed. This vehicle could have obtained sufficient velocity to place it in orbit, if the last stage had been activated. First deep penetration of space. Serial number coding for early Redstones and related vehicles used the following substitution cipher: 1234567890 = HUNTSVILLEX

Space Task Group seek temporary operational quarters in Houston - .
Nation: USA. Summary: Robert R. Gilruth and other officials of the Space Task Group surveyed the Houston, Texas, area to seek temporary operational quarters while the permanent installation was being constructed..

President Kennedy suggested Russian-American cooperation in space - .
Nation: USA. Related Persons: Kennedy. Program: Apollo. President John F. Kennedy, during an address before the United Nations General Assembly, suggested the possibility of Russian-American "cooperation" in space. Though not proposing any specific program, Kennedy stated that, "in a field where the United States and the Soviet Union have a special capacity - the field of space - there is room for new cooperation, for further joint efforts in the regulation and exploration of space. I include among these possibilities," he said, "a joint expedition to the moon. . . . Surely we should explore whether the scientists and astronauts of our two countries - indeed, of all the world - cannot work together in the conquest of space, sending some day in this decade to the moon, not the representatives of a single nation, but the representatives of all humanity." Additional Details: President Kennedy suggested Russian-American cooperation in space.

The Combined Systems Acceptance Test of Gemini launch vehicle (GLV) 7 was completed in the vertical test facility at Martin-Baltimore. - .
Nation: USA. Flight: Gemini 7. Inspection of GLV-7 by the vehicle acceptance team began September 27 and ended October 1, with the vehicle found acceptable. GLV-7 was deerected October 5 and formally accepted by the Air Force October 15. Stage I was airlifted to Cape Kennedy October 16, followed by stage II October 18. Both stages were placed in storage pending the launch of the Gemini VI mission.

Surveyor 2 - .
Payload: Surveyor SC-2. Mass: 292 kg (643 lb). Nation: USA. Agency: NASA; JPL. Class: Moon. Type: Lunar probe. Spacecraft: Surveyor. Decay Date: 1966-09-23 . USAF Sat Cat: 2425 . COSPAR: 1966-084A. Soft lunar landing attempt failed. Surveyor II was launched from Cape Kennedy at 8:32 a.m. EDT. The Atlas-Centaur launch vehicle placed the spacecraft on a nearly perfect lunar intercept trajectory that would have missed the aim point by about 130 kilometers. Following injection, the spacecraft successfully accomplished all required sequences up to the midcourse thrust phase. This phase was not successful because of the failure of one of the three vernier engines to ignite, causing eventual loss of the mission. Contact with the spacecraft was lost at 5:35 a.m. EDT, September 22, and impact on the lunar surface was predicted at 11:18 p.m. on that day.

Review of N1 progress. - .
Nation: USSR. Related Persons: Mishin; Pashkov; Smirnov; Ustinov. Program: Lunar L3. Spacecraft: Spiral OS; LK-700. The booster was supposed to be launched by 1966, but there is no way it will be finished this year, and it is highly questionable it will even get off the ground in 1968. The N1 tanks are pressurised to 2 atmospheres, and can go up to three atmospheres in an emergency. In the enormous MIK assembly hall are three N1's - one 'iron bird' ground test model and two flight vehicles. The first roll out of the mock-up will take place in 1967, and the first launch attempt is still expected in 1968 (the first launch will not be attempted until the second and third stages complete stand tests. There is no test stand for the first stage, it will be fired for the first time in flight). An explosion would destroy the pad, requiring several years of repairs. There are two pads, but even that would not be a guarantee of the availability of the rocket due to the poor expected initial reliability. The N1 project is costing 10 billion roubles, not including considerable investment required by the military. To Kamanin the whole thing is a boondoggle, showing the necessity for development of lighter air-launched boosters. He believes there are many mistakes in design and construction, but Mishin, Pashkov, Smirnov, and Ustinov support these doubtful projects of Korolev and Mishin, instead of technically sound projects such as Chelomei's UR-700 or MiG's air-launched spacecraft. If Mishin thinks the current Proton/L1 reliability is only 0.6, then that of the completely unproved N1/L3 must be even less...

1968 September 20 - .

Kamanin hold a cosmonaut meeting. - .
Nation: USSR. Related Persons: Tereshkova; Titov; Beregovoi. Program: Lunar L1. Spacecraft: Soyuz 7K-L1. Tereshkova is having political problems. Titov is to go to Mexico, although he still is making errors of judgement which make it questionable whether he can be trusted on foreign tours. Beregovoi is to complete his cosmonaut examinations on 27 September, and then will be certified for flight.

The success of Zond 7 has emboldened Mishin and Tyulin. - .
Nation: USSR. Related Persons: Mishin; Tyulin. Program: Lunar L1. Spacecraft: Soyuz 7K-L1. They want to fly Zond 8 unpiloted in December 1969, to be followed by a two-man L1 lunar flyby in April 1970. This would look bad compared to the Apollo moon landings, but there was no other manned space mission they could offer the leadership in 1970. Of the 15 L1 spacecraft built, only three remain.

Luna 16 lands on moon. - .
Nation: USSR. Program: Luna. Spacecraft: Luna Ye-8-5. Luna 16 first placed itself into a 106 x 15 km lunar orbit, inclination 71 degrees. After the trajectory was measured and calculations made on earth, it was instructed to make its Phase 1 descent using a timed burn. Phase 2 began at 600 m altitude. From this point the new-design braking rocket was controlled automatically according to height and velocity as measured by radar. At 220 m altitude the main engine shut down, and small braking rockets fired. These were shut down just 2 m above the surface. At 08:18 Luna 16 successfully made a soft landing on the moon. Getting there required 68 communications sessions over nine days of flight. At 10:00 the drill obtains the soil sample and inserts it into the return capsule.

Cosmonaut Gherman Stepanovich Titov dies at age of 65 -- Heart attack in a sauna. - .
Nation: Russia. Related Persons: Titov. Summary: Russian pilot cosmonaut. Flew on Vostok 2. Second person in orbit. Youngest person in space. Left cosmonaut team for brilliant career in the space forces after deciding his future spaceflight prospects were nil..

Compared to earlier satellites in the Insat series, Edusat used several new technologies. The spacecraft was built around the I-2K standardised spacecraft bus. It had a multiple spot beam antenna with a 1.2 m reflector to direct Ku band spot beams, a dual core bent heat pipe for thermal control, high efficiency multi-junction solar cells and an improved thruster configuration for optimised propellant use for orbit and orientation maintenance. The satellite used radiatively cooled Ku-band Travelling Wave Tube Amplifiers and a dielectrically loaded C-band demultiplexer for its communication payloads. Edusat carried five Ku-band transponders providing spot beams, one Ku-band transponder providing a national beam and six Extended C-band transponders with a national coverage beam. It was to join the Insat system that already provided more than 130 transponders in C-band, Extended C-band and Ku-band for a variety of telecommunication and television services.

First operational flight of launch vehicle. Launch delayed from July, August and September 10. Dry mass 820 kg. As of 2007 Mar 9 located at 73.92E drifting at 0.006W degrees per day.